The Montagues sat together in a corner, putting up their eye-glasses at every one that entered the room, and criticising the company in loud whispers to each other; poor Mrs. Marsden endeavouring to catch opportunities of paying her court to them.
About nine o'clock, appeared an immense cap of blond lace, gauze riband, and flowers; and under the cap was Mrs. Washington Potts, a little, thin, trifling-looking woman with a whitish freckled face, small sharp features, and flaxen hair. She leaned on the arm of Mr. Washington Potts, who was nothing in company or anywhere else; and she led by the hand a little boy in a suit of scarlet, braided and frogged with blue: a pale rat-looking child, whose name she pronounced Laughy-yet, meaning La Fayette; and who being the youngest scion of the house of Potts, always went to parties with his mother, because he would not stay at home.
Bromley Cheston, on being introduced to Mrs. Washington Potts, was surprised at the insignificance of her figure and face. He had imagined her tall in stature, large in feature, loud in voice, and in short the very counterpart to Mrs. Montague. He found her, however, as he had supposed, replete with vanity, pride, ignorance, and folly: to which she added a sickening affectation of sweetness and amiability, and a flimsy pretension to extraordinary powers of conversation, founded on a confused assemblage of incorrect and superficial ideas, which she mistook for a general knowledge of everything in the world.
Mrs. Potts was delighted with the handsome face and figure, and the very genteel appearance of the young lieutenant, and she bestowed upon him a large portion of her talk.
"I hear, sir," said she, "you have been in the Mediterranean Sea. A sweet pretty place, is it not?"
"Its shores," replied Cheston, "are certainly very beautiful."
"Yes, I should admire its chalky cliffs vastly," resumed Mrs. Potts; "they are quite poetical, you know. Pray, sir, which do you prefer, Byron or Bonaparte? I dote upon Byron; and considering what sweet verses he wrote, 'tis a pity he was a corsair, and a vampyre pirate, and all such horrid things. As for Bonaparte, I never could endure him after I found that he had cut off poor old King George's head. Now, when we talk of great men, my husband is altogether for Washington. I laugh, and tell Mr. Potts it's because he and Washington are namesakes. How do you like La Fayette?"—(pronouncing the name à la canaille).
"The man, or the name?" inquired Cheston.
"Oh! both to be sure. You see we have called our youngest blossom after him. Come here, La Fayette, stand forward, my dear; hold up your head, and make a bow to the gentleman."
"I won't," screamed La Fayette. "I'll never make a bow when you tell me."